The Wild Irish Girl, Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan

• Introductory Letters, To Horatio, p.3
• The Earl of M-- writes to his son, who is imprisoned for a debt. The father is pained by his son's faults. He will pay off his debts. This will force the Earl to retreat to his estate in Ireland.
• Horatio had much promise, which makes the disappointment so much greater:
• if unillumined by those coruscations your superior and promising genius flashed on the parental heart, could not prepare for its sanguine feelings that mortal disappointment with which you have destroyed all hopes.
• Introductory Letters, To Earl of M--, p.5
• Horatio writes back to his father asking him not to pay his debts:
• 'I have sinned against Heaven and thee, and am no longer worthy of to be called thy son'
• Introductory Letters, To Horatio, p.5
• The Earl writes back to Horatio, telling him he is still foolish. He will pay his debts, but he will be banished to Ireland with him:
• If you would retribute what you seem to lament, and unite restitution with penitence, leave this country for a short time, and abandon the haunts of your former blameable pursuits, those associates who were at once the cause and punishment of your errors. I myself will become your partner in exile, for it is my estate in Ireland I banish you for the summer.
• Introductory Letters, To Earl of M--, p.7
• Horatio accepts his banishment:
• I shall offer no thanks, my Lord, for the generosity of your conduct, nor any extenuation for the errors of mine.
• Introductory Letters, To J.D. Esq, p.7
• Horatio writes to his friend, and explains his situtation:
• Suffice it to say, that equally the victim of the husband's villainy and the wife's artifice, I stifled on its birth a threatened prosecution, by giving my bond for a sum I was unable to liquidate: it was given as for a gambling debt, but my father, who has long suspected, and endeavored to break this fatal connexion, guessed at the truth, and suffered me to become a guest (mal voluntaire) in the King's Bench.
• Letter I, p.13
• Horatio has this stereotypical, prejudicial opinion of the Irish that was shaped by a story he heard as a boy. He recognizes his prejudice was wrong as he arrived in Dublin:
• So true is it, that almost all the erroneous principles which influence our maturer being, are to be traced to some fatal association of ideas received and formed in early life.
• He is amazed by the view of Dublin bay. A man on board his ship compares it to Naples, but Horatio cannot fathom anything as beautiful.
• In addition to his surprise of the beauty, he is also surprised by the courteousness of the Irish men who take him ashore.
• He compares and contrasts Dublin to London.
• His prejudices toward Ireland and its people are almost mortally wounded.
• But Horatio believes he can only discover the true character of Ireland and its people in the classic ground of the country, Connaught, where he travels tomorrow to M-- house:
• so I shall have a fair opportunity to beholding the Irish character in all its primeval ferocity.
• Letter II, p.17
• Horatio rides, uncomfortably, toward Bally-- but walks the last 20 miles.
• He comes upon a hut, where he finds a group of women singing in Irish. He tries to talk to them but they don't speak English. A man enters who speaks English and offers to guide Horatio.
• The guide is friendly and takes him to the village Horatio had wanted to go to for breakfast, and Horatio buys the man breakfast before they part ways.
• Leaving the village and continuing toward Bally--, Horatio encounters a man walking with a sickly looking cow.
• When Horatio learns the man is headed toward Bally-- as well, he suggests they travel together:
• The poor fellow seemed touched and surprized by my condescenion, and profoundly bowed his sense of it, while the curious triumviri set off on their pedestrian tour together.
• The man's name is Murtoch; the cow's name is Driminduath. Murtoch tells his story. He traveled to sell his cow to support his sickly wife, but no one would buy the sickly cow. He travels home with his cow "with full hearts and empty stomachs."
• Horatio gives him a biscuit out of his pocket. Murtoch had not ate in 24 hours.
• When they arrive at a town, Horatio ("I need not tell you") gives Murtoch money so him and his cow can eat. Murtoch uses the money to buy whiskey:
• --What a breakfast for a famishing man!
• For his wife, Murtoch buys bacon and wine, which are both remedies for the heart he claims.
• They are close to Bally--, but it rains and Murtoch invites Horatio to take shelter in a cabin. Horatio wonders if he is invited, but Murtoch assures him they would be happy to shelter a traveller. Murtoch serves as the interpretter.
• For dinner, they have potatoes, and they give Horatio the good milk, while drinking the sour milk themselves. After dinner, Murtoch sings a melancholy song.
• When the rain stopped, the family encouraged them to stay the night, but Horatio and Murtoch got on their way again.
• Horatio attempts to pay them. They refuse to accept, until Horatio demands they accept, otherwise he won't return again.
• Horatio's opinions of the Irish are entirely changed, and he regrets his prejudiced views:
• But your smiling welcome, and parting benediction, retributed my error -- in the feelings of remorse they awakened.
• When they finally arrive, Horatio gives Murtoch his address, and he is shocked to learn his travel companion is the son of the lord of the manor.
• Letter III, p.31
• Horatio's father is the British lord who rules absently over his Irish lands. In his absence, the steward runs the lands. The steward is a rascal, and Horatio much prefers his former travel companion Murtoch:
• Mr Clendinning was absent from M-- house when I arrived, but attended me the next morning at breakfast, with that fawning civility of manner I abhor, and which, contrasted with the manly courteousness of my late companion, never appeared more grossly obvious.
• Clendinning talks down about the Irish peasantry, but this only serves to bolster Horatio's opinion of the Irish as he dislikes Clendinning greatly.
• Horatio is bored. He reads the law books, but they are boring. He tries to avoid Clendinnin.
• The Irish tenants want to see Horatio, but he avoids them as well, even the women. Horatio dispises women, presumably from his previous troubles arising from a woman.
• Horatio asks the tenants why they don't complain to his father about their treatment from Clendinnin. They explain they fear their complaints will pass on to Clendinnin, and then they will have to pay a steep price.
• Horatio also learns his father usually stays at "The Lodge," which actually belongs to Clendinnin and is rented from him. Horatio realizes it is strange for his father to rent from his steward.
• Horatio provides Murtoch a farm, to which Murtoch must pay rent to Horatio, presumably under good terms. He also gives Murtoch's wife wine.
• Letter IV, p.
• Harotio decides to go check out the Lodge. He hides his own identity, and gets a man to let him in. He finds his father has a library of Irish books:
• So you see, in fact, my father's Sultana is no other than the Irish Muse; and never was son so tempted to become the rival of his father, since the days of Antiochus and Stratonice.
• Because Horatio is kind to him, the old man tells him everything he knows.
• The Prince of Inismore was killed in his son's arms by Horatio's ancestor.
• A new prince built this lodge, for somewhere else to live besides the castle which is haunted by the murdered prince.
• This prince only had one child, a girl, the princess, Lady Glorvina, a child born in the Lodge, now Horatio's father's room.
• The prince gets swindled out of the Lodge by an English man, and has to move back to the haunted castle. The English swindler is, of course, the rascal Clendinnin.
• Horatio's father tries to return the Lodge to the prince, but the prince refuses, not wishing to accept a favour from "the descendant of his ancestor's murderer."
• Horatio wonders if the prince would meet with Lord M's son (himself). The old man doubts it. Horatio asks about the princess then. The man responds:
• I cannot tell you what the Lady Glorvina is, for she is like nothing upon the face of God's creation but herself.
• The old man says if he wants to meet her, Horatio can see the family at church.
• Horatio is off, to Inismore, to meet the prince and his daughter, Glorvina. Horatio has high hopes for them:
• if this savage chief was generous and benevolent, as he is independent and spirited; if this daughter was amiable and intelligent, as she must be simple and unvitiated! But I dare not pursue the supposition. It is better as it is.
• Horatio feels bad for his family's role in this sad story.